Giuliani’s Misstatement, but Stephanopoulos’s Red Face

On “Good Morning America” on ABC Friday, the former New York City mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, stated that “we had no domestic attacks under Bush; we’ve had one under Obama.”

The misstatement — which omitted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which occurred nearly eight months after President Bush took office — was roundly criticized Friday, even by some of ABC’s correspondents. “Even if you assume he meant post-9/11 this is hard to justify,” Rick Klein, the primary author of ABC’s online political memo The Note, wrote on Twitter.

But at the time, the interviewer, George Stephanopoulos, let Mr. Giuliani’s assertion go unquestioned. The segment ended a minute later with a joke about the day’s snowfall in New York City.

Amid an online outcry, Mr. Stephanopoulos, a veteran political anchor who became a co-host of the show last month, acknowledged later Friday that the lack of follow-up was a mistake.

“All of you who have pointed out that I should have pressed him on that misstatement in the moment are right. My mistake, my responsibility,” he wrote in a blog post.

He did not say whether he would address the misstatement in a future television program.

The comment was raised at a White House news briefing Friday, where the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said “there were a number of things” in the interview “that didn’t quite seem to jibe with the better part of reality.”

In a subsequent interview on CNN, Mr. Giuliani apologized for having omitted the words “since Sept. 11th.” He said his remark about Mr. Obama was a reference to the shooting rampage that killed 13 at Fort Hood, Tex., in November.

“Some might argue, however, that even with this quite significant clarification, Giuliani is ignoring some other acts of terrorism,” ABC’s White House correspondent Jake Tapper wrote in a blog post, citing an Egyptian immigrant who fatally shot two people an El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport in 2002, among other incidents.

“Whatever the mayor meant, it’s not what he said,” Mr. Stephanopoulos added in his blog post.

Giuliani critics seized on the misstatement. Some tied it to a remark by the former Bush press secretary, Dana Perino, who said on the Fox New Channel last November, “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.”

A version of this article appears in print on January 9, 2010, on page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: Giuliani’s Misstatement, but Stephanopoulos’s Red Face. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe